James Graham

This week we have the fantastic James Graham joining us for lunch! James came by to talk about his award winning play, Dear England coming to the BBC. Over lunch, we covered everything from growing up in a Nottinghamshire mining village and telly dinners, to the huge Sunday roasts his family loved. We also chatted about Gareth Southgate, turning football into theatre, his love of musicals, the Polish soup disaster that put him off hosting, and his very romantic passion for whisky. James was such a thoughtful guest, we are such fans of his work and we absolutely loved having him at the table. Dear England is coming to BBC iPlayer and BBC One later this month! Listen & watch Table Manners here - https://tablemanners.komi.io/ Follow Table Manners on: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tablemannerspodcast/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tablemannerspodcast Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tablemannerspodcast YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TableMannersPodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table manners. I'm Jessie Ware. It's a beautiful day in South London. You look fabulous. I like the red.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Do you? It matches my lips. Or my lips match the jumper.

• 0:14Jessie Ware?

  It's good. It's working, honey.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 0:16Jessie Ware?

  And we are so excited about the guest today.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  I can't wait. I think I've seen probably at least more than half of his plays that he's written or been involved with.

• 0:27Jessie Ware?

  So we have the phenomenal James Graham, who is a playwright, a screenwriter. He's a national treasure. He's got an OBE.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  I know.

• 0:36Jessie Ware?

  For his services to drama.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:37Jessie Ware?

  He is one of our most cherished and celebrated playwrights in Britain and just kind of around the world too. He is incredible.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Well, he addresses current issues. That's what I love about him. And old institutions.

• 0:51Jessie Ware?

  If you don't know who James Graham is, you may have heard of the hugely successful play that was at the National and then transferred to the West End called Dear England, which was all about Gareth Southgate's kind of

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Vision.

• 1:05Jessie Ware?

  reign and vision with the England squad and how he really turned things around for us. He's also made musicals, Tammy Faye, which was hugely popular at the Almeida.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  House.

• 1:15Jessie Ware?

  I didn't see House.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  I did. He tackled Parliament and people voting, the voting in the House. Sherwood.

• 1:23Jessie Ware?

  Sherwood, the Nottingham drama, which is so good.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26Jessie Ware?

  Punch, which I think won best.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Punch won best new play, I think, and has transferred from Young Vic to the West End.

• 1:35Jessie Ware?

  And then it went to Broadway, Mum.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  It's gone to Broadway.

• 1:37Jessie Ware?

  He's just incredible. I think he's absolutely amazing. And he's coming over now. I am on food duty.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:45Jessie Ware?

  So I've made, because it's really nice weather, I've made two salads. One is from the brilliant book Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. And I've made this, I've never made it before, but it was quite straightforward. It's fennel. And chicken and chilies and basil and mint and all these beautiful herbs. And then you make this cooked orange saffron honey sauce, which kind of almost tastes like marmalade. So you grid all the chicken and it's got this kind of sweet orange dressing. But I think it will cut through with all the herbs and the chili. So I've done that. And then I've done this roasted cauliflower, pistachio and pomegranate salad,

• 2:30Jessie Ware?

  which is from Ottolenghi's Simple.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  And was it simple?

• 2:35Jessie Ware?

  I mean, for Ottolenghi, it was quite simple. And then I've got a bit of a sad loaf.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  What happened, Jess? It was alright.

• 2:41Jessie Ware?

  I think I overproofed it yesterday.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  It's not the proofing, it's the cooking.

• 2:46Jessie Ware?

  No, no, no, it's not that. No, the dark is fine. I don't mind that.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:49Jessie Ware?

  But I don't think I left my starter to rise for long enough. I think I was too keen to use it.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  You actually know that, do you?

• 2:57Jessie Ware?

  I'm starting to understand Helen the starter. And so that's, and you've made two puddings.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Well, I made a cardamom and pistachio cake yesterday. And it does have a kind of caramelised almond and sugar topping with butter on the top. But I wondered if it felt a bit hard and felt like a giant biscuit. And I thought, I'm not going to let myself down. So I got up this morning and I've made a Lisbon chocolate cake from the New York Times.

• 3:22Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, what makes it Lisbon?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  I have no, someone tasted it in Lisbon.

• 3:26Jessie Ware?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  And so it's basically a chocolate cake, but kind of very limited. It's like butter, cocoa, chocolate and corn flour, but no flour and eggs. That's the cake. And then it's got a chocolate mousse on the top. So you, making the ganache was a trial, I can tell you.

• 3:47Jessie Ware?

  Oh, really?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Anyway, it looks all right and let's hope it works.

• 3:50Jessie Ware?

  James Graham coming up on table manners.

• 4:00Jessie Ware?

  James Graham.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 4:02Jessie Ware?

  We're so excited to have you. Why, why are you being like, no, you're a big deal.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  I love you guys, but also like, no one will know who I am. Like playwrights are so anonymous and rightly so.

• 4:12Jessie Ware?

  Okay, no, Tony nominee, Olivier Award winning, makes kind of the best dramas on television. Writes a play every other day.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 4:23Jessie Ware?

  Congratulations on Punch.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 4:25Jessie Ware?

  I went to see it.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  I know you did, I remember.

• 4:28Jessie Ware?

  I went, I think I went just after the press night or just at the end of previews.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  The Young Vic?

• 4:32Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you for coming.

• 4:34Jessie Ware?

  And that was one of the most arresting first halves I've ever seen of any play. He was unbelievable, that guy.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  David, yeah, he was brilliant, David Shields.

• 4:40Jessie Ware?

  It was like, I didn't know him and I felt like he set up now. I'm sure he was acting before and doing very, very well, but that was a defining role for him.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, he got a nomination as well, but it's, I'm so glad you got to see it. It's one of those stories that you come across very rarely, that like, I can never like, talk about it, like nearly bursting into tears. It's like such a moving story of this guy, Jacob Reel, guy from Nottingham, who, who on a night out, you know, lads, gangs, drink, punched somebody and without meaning to, killed them with a one punch.

• 5:10Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  And it's just that rare story of, it's a story about masculinity and men in the criminal justice system that ends really positively. And basically what happens is the parents reach out to him and go on a journey of restorative justice where basically like the mother forgives him for killing his, her son and saves his life, like decides she's gonna help him and now he's in, he got a PhD at university.

• 5:33Jessie Ware?

  Done TED Talks.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Now he's done TED Talks, he goes into prisons and saves other young lads.

• 5:36Jessie Ware?

  I haven't seen it yet, I will go.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  I'm gonna turn it into a TV drama so you can, give it a whirl, yeah.

• 5:42Jessie Ware?

  How does that work with like, who plays who?

• 5:45Speaker 02

  We don't know, like, we do, the, the, the great thing about TV and then the sad thing is about, you sort of hand it up to like TV gods and things like that. But I'm loyal to that cast and I will fight for them to the end of the earth.

• 5:56Jessie Ware?

  Speaking of TV gods, you are a bit of a TV god anyway, but you've just made your amazing Dear England into a TV show. And that's why you're coming on. On today, even though we have been wanting you for a very long time.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  I know, you've been really patient. I don't know why I keep fucking up and not coming on. I'm so sorry.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Because I wanted to list all the ones I have seen. And I forgot to mention Ink, which I absolutely adored about Rupert Murdoch.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Uh, that's, we're just about to release that as a movie.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Are you?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Danny Boyle.

• 6:24Jessie Ware?

  Wow.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Guy Pearce, um, Australian actor.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Oh, perfect.

• 6:29Jessie Ware?

  Memento. Oh, yeah. Neighbours. Yeah, sure.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Neighbours.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  You're perfect.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, Danny Boyle, who's directed the movie, he really wanted a proper Aussie to play Murdoch, so to imbue that authenticity.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  But who did I watch play it at the Almeida?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Bertie Carville.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Bertie Carville.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  He won like an Olivia and a Tony for that.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  He was sensational, yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's in the film as well, playing a different part. Um, but yeah, so it's fun.

• 6:52Jessie Ware?

  God, you don't stop.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Um, well, Ink was like eight years ago and it took me so long to get that screenplay right. It took me ages. It was in development hell, but not like in a good way. Just in development hell in my head. Like no one was sharing the hell with me. I just couldn't crack it.

• 7:05Jessie Ware?

  Do you ever collaborate with people in the writing room or is it all just you?

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Writing, just me, yeah. But like the joy of being like a playwright or screenwriter rather than a novelist is, is really collaborative. Like you go into a rehearsal room and there's actors and there's directors and there's a set designer or like on Dear England, there's a choreographer. So in the script I could just get to go and now they do some penalties and hand that over to somebody and then they work it out and it's great.

• 7:30Jessie Ware?

  And Es Devlin did the lighting, who is just so incredible.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:34Jessie Ware?

  And she did the set and the lighting, sorry. She did the set, which, okay, so you're on to talk about Dear England, which we both watched at the National Theatre.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Thank you for going.

• 7:43Jessie Ware?

  Such a pleasure.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  I think we were there the second week.

• 7:46Jessie Ware?

  It was so wonderful. My husband, who hasn't always gone to the theatre, who I'm like, you're coming to the theatre with me. It was like the perfect entry point for him.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  I think it was your Christmas present. I treated you.

• 7:58Jessie Ware?

  Tickets and we went and you know, by, is it the first half, we're all singing Sweet Caroline or whatever. But it was, Sam was like, oh, okay, this can be the theatre. Fine. Great. Thanks.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:09Jessie Ware?

  He then told his brother to go. So it did bring in a different kind of national theatre audience.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  But that was always the hope and dream and that's got nothing to do with me. Just like the like the hope was by telling a football story that a non traditional theatre crowd um would come and see.

• 8:21Jessie Ware?

  Why are you so humble? Of course, it's got everything to do with you. You decided to tell Gareth Southgate's story and how he transformed the England.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Lads aren't coming to see me, they're coming to see because it's a story that they care about about football. And I know I came up with the idea and all that.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I you see, I think people came because it was a James Graham play and there were lots of old fuddy duddies there. And then they were on their feet all going Sweet Caroline at the end, which was amazing.

• 8:43Jessie Ware?

  Energy in the room, like it was so amazing and I'm so happy it's been so successful.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Every favourite footballer that came, Marcus, Harry.

• 8:53Jessie Ware?

  It was so special. And then, you know, Joseph Fiennes was phenomenal.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he's he's playing in the TV drama as well, which is great.

• 8:59Jessie Ware?

  Watched two episodes.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, my God.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I watched last night.

• 9:02Jessie Ware?

  And it's got a different, it's got a different energy, of course, because it's not a play that's done in two hours. It's a four parter.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  It's a four parter. And also, no, you're right. Like, it wasn't, I didn't find that really easy as well, because the joy of the stage play is it's theatre. So there's like an abstract language to it. Um whereas telly is so naturalistic, that's right.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  But but also the football's different. So you actually see matches.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Which for me is thrilling because I love football.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Right, good, yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Whereas it was more choreographed.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  It was like a dance on stage.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Imagination and it was a dance.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  But so, so it was a more serious, it was more serious in some respects because you address things like racism. Yeah, you do, but not as, I don't feel it was as in depth. You didn't get the emotion quite, maybe quite as much.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Like, I guess on telly, there's something about like the lens, that you feel like more interior in the actor's head, where there's something. I loved it on stage for what like Es and Rupert and the director, people like did that because it felt like you were in a stadium.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Like you're dancing and cheering and and then TV just had to have a different like grammar. You have to find a different quality to it.

• 10:08Jessie Ware?

  But I do think you honoured the stage play because you it was quite um bombastic with Es Devlin's design.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:16Jessie Ware?

  With it the the kind of big zoom, there was big sound effects.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Great sound, yeah.

• 10:21Jessie Ware?

  And I feel like you did that in the TV show without kind of giving too much away. It's it's captivating and it's very exciting.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  It's exciting.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Hope so. I just find it a bit like punch. I find the story so. Moving, but also it's like a really hopeful story. I think Gareth Southgate's project, and loads of people have different views of the England manager and that's their right and it's everyone's England, not just mine. But I think what he did to transform the culture of that team and those young lads.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Have you met him?

• 10:52Speaker 02

  I have, yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  What's he like? Is he as gorgeous and sincere and kind?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  All those things. Like the most Gareth Southgate thing he did was that he obviously was a bit nervous about having an actor play him. And he didn't really think he was worthy of a story. He hadn't won a trophy. So he thought, well, why are you doing a play about me? But also because he's Gareth Southgate, even though he sort of hated it, he helped me do it. Because he thought, well, I want to help you. So he brought me to St George's and I got to meet all his team. And we've stayed in contact since as he moves on to the next phase of his life and works out what he wants to do. So whether or not he'll ever watch it, I totally get why. Like, would you watch a version?

• 11:35Speaker 01

  He's never been to see the play?

• 11:36Speaker 02

  No, family have, kids have, his mates have.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  He's just never seen it.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  And I get why. I think because the idea of people watching him watching himself, that's just not who he is.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  But he can watch it on iPlayer, can't he?

• 11:46Speaker 02

  He can, but even if he doesn't want to, I would totally get it. Like, would you watch an actor playing you if they did the biopic? When they do the biopic?

• 11:52Speaker 01

  I don't know. I love you.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Of course they will.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  The songs are so gorgeous. Natalie Cassidy playing Jesse.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Just doing this now.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  But did you get the approval of all the actors?

• 12:02Speaker 02

  The real people?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  For the real people, say, oh, so Marcus didn't have to approve who was playing him?

• 12:08Speaker 02

  No, it's a really good question. It's like, I think about this all the time, actually, like what the moral responsibility is when you're doing a real life story. And like, you want to respect them and you don't want to, you know, there's loads of laws. You can't just destroy someone's character because you don't like them. But equally, you need the distance as well. Like, they can't endorse it because they've got to both. Defend them and prosecute them in a way. You've got to celebrate them, but you've also got to go, what did Gareth Southgate get wrong? Was he was he good at this or was he bad at this? Do you agree with him? So we never saw an endorsement from the F A or the players because I have a public responsibility to not be doing, I mean, they do quite a lot now, sadly, don't they? All these musical films coming out

• 12:47Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  about bands and artists and it's the estate that control them and you just think that's

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Harry Kane, because he's Sam's favourite.

• 12:55Jessie Ware?

  Well, I feel like you portrayed him slightly differently

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:58Jessie Ware?

  in the T V show.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was different in the T V than the theatre.

• 13:02Jessie Ware?

  Discussion about whether it was kind of slightly too comedic, but I feel like you've definitely gone away from that in the T V show slightly.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, he seems sharper more.

• 13:12Jessie Ware?

  Was that accidental just because of kind of

• 13:15Speaker 02

  A little bit, I mean, I I think the actor, Will Close, he won an Olivier while playing him and I I think he just nailed it. But I think something does happen in a theatre where when people are laughing, like a thousand people are laughing. I think I I didn't feel this, but I think sometimes people thought, oh, God, am I laughing at him rather than with him? And we tried to tell that story, he had a whole scene in the play where he goes, I know people take the piss out of my voice and they think I'm not very smart and I'm not a normal leader in the sense that he's not fireworks, he's very thoughtful, he's very decent, kind man. I think he's one of the greatest captains England have ever had because he carries with him a kind of nobility that is quieter than Beckham or Rooney.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  But I heard some people think that they thought just by being in a room where you're, everyone's just really enjoying the impression. So on telly, we just wanted to make sure that because he's not that after

• 14:06Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  that you get in his head a little bit more.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Can we just big up Harry? Because last night was probably one of the best

• 14:11Jessie Ware?

  Did you watch the match last night?

• 14:13Speaker 02

  I saw the score.

• 14:13Jessie Ware?

  It was amazing football.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  He scored his fifty ninth goal of the season last night.

• 14:19Jessie Ware?

  It's unbelievable.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Fifty nine goals for Bayern.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Of course, yeah, it'd be Rooney's record during our story. It's extraordinary. He's one of the greats. But it's not just his performance. I maintain it's what he represents. Like, how many how many male role models do the lads have now? And he's just a good man. And I just think that's brilliant.

• 14:37Jessie Ware?

  Who do you support?

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Um, I, I feel like it is Nottingham Forest, but um, I'm, I have to like hold my hand up. I'm one of them fair weather people. Like I dropped out for a lot of my teenage years. And when they started doing better, I did come back to it, but um, and so I have to hold my hands up for that, but uh, but it's. I've always loved England. I don't know what it is, possibly like, I was like quite a shy, introverted kid and. You know, like I was a theatre kid. I did ice skating. I wore tights and sparkly things. Um.

• 15:05Jessie Ware?

  Were you good at ice skating?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I was pretty good.

• 15:07Jessie Ware?

  Well, isn't Nottingham, isn't.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  I skated on the ice and.

• 15:13Jessie Ware?

  Were they the people that you were like looking at then?

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Oh my god, yeah, yeah. But obviously that wasn't a traditionally masculine thing and there's issues like when you're working out your sexuality and you're. And I was like, I was just not that um, blokey kid. I hated P E. I felt so nervous in P E. So wrongly, I had a resistance to like club football week by week, which I've completely got over now. I was at City Ground a couple of weeks ago. Um, I saw Forest beat Spurs three nil at its birth stadium, um, couple of at the Tottenham Stadium. So I love it now, but I always just had a bit of a love hate with weekly football.

• 15:46Jessie Ware?

  So you grew up in Nottingham?

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Oh, we get, right, yes.

• 15:48Jessie Ware?

  We're going in now.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Therapy, yeah, good.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Can you get the wine up for Christ's sake?

• 15:52Speaker 02

  We're gonna talk about feelings, I'm gonna need.

• 15:59Jessie Ware?

  Whilst producer Alice opens the wine, um, grew up in Nottingham.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  Nottinghamshire.

• 16:05Jessie Ware?

  Nottinghamshire.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Uh, mining village in the north, yeah.

• 16:07Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Oh, so you weren't, how far away from Nottingham?

• 16:09Speaker 02

  About forty minutes on the bus.

• 16:11Jessie Ware?

  Where was your nearest M and S?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  M and S?

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Well, for your food shopping and your underwear.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  No, it was Iceland and Safeway.

• 16:18Jessie Ware?

  Oh, Iceland.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  I couldn't believe when I moved to London, M and S did food. I remember thinking, I thought they just did bad shirts, not good shirts.

• 16:26Jessie Ware?

  Are you kidding? We love M and S.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  I love it now. But uh, probably Debenhams. But it's like Mansfield was my biggest town.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Mansfield, it was a big mining town.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Well, it was all, they were all closing down when I was growing up. So that was informed, I think, a lot more politics.

• 16:40Jessie Ware?

  Well, an informed Sherwood.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:43Jessie Ware?

  Which we'll talk about later. But so who was around the dinner table and what were you eating?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  It was, I've been thinking about this. For coming on, um, I was just gonna own it, like, uh, we didn't sit around the dinner table. We sat with it.

• 16:57Jessie Ware?

  Well, that's how you've got so interesting drama.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  And I didn't know whether, like, it's not, um, definitely wasn't like across the, but like, it's a working class upbringing in a mining town, but then I knew uh, mates who always sat at the dinner table and they're very proud of that, but for some reason that just wasn't in our, so I, yes, it was.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  My dad, with my parents divorced, my dad, um, lived close to Nottingham and he, uh, worked for the local council.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Mum did loads of jobs, so when I was going, she worked in the local pub as a barmaid. Um, and then she worked in a warehouse where I got my first job and then she worked as a receptionist in a, in a primary school. Um, she was always doing, and then worked in a shop in the, by the weekend, she was always doing loads of jobs.

• 17:37Jessie Ware?

  And there were just the two of you?

• 17:38Speaker 02

  And I had a twin sister who lived with me.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Her name is Laura. She loved drama as well. We did plays at school together and I've got an older brother, um, Richard, who has come into uh, the film world as well. He's an editor.

• 17:54Jessie Ware?

  And I know Richard.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  I didn't know that.

• 17:57Jessie Ware?

  So I've been in France with Richard at weddings.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  He never told me that.

• 18:01Jessie Ware?

  Oh, well, obviously didn't leave an impact on him.

• 18:05Jessie Ware?

  But he was lovely.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Wanted to keep me to himself.

• 18:09Jessie Ware?

  And I remember him being quite intense when we were both drunk and I quite, I enjoy intensity, so it was great.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Let's see what happens.

• 18:19Jessie Ware?

  We are such fans, congratulations.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  My friends over, I can't believe I'm here. I can't, I don't care, but my friends.

• 18:28Jessie Ware?

  Oh, who are your friends? You should have brought them over.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I need something, I need some stuff.

• 18:34Jessie Ware?

  Jesse, there's nothing in the oven, is there? No, no, no, no. Um, so I've also realised that I've done something with loads of herbs, so there is the worry that we're all gonna get it in our teeth, so we just have to be honest with each other.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 18:47Jessie Ware?

  If we've got it, because it's, there's potential. Um, so, so when you were eating your food on your lap, watching telly, what were you watching?

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Uh, soaps like curry, Emmerdale, EastEnders. It was when I was growing up, I didn't watch. Much now, just because of time, but I loved, I loved the rhythm of it, like the rhythm of that life. You come back every evening and see what happened next. Um, I was obsessed, like, oh, my God, like when we went on a holiday and like holidays were in a caravan in Mansfield. Uh, we would go to a field and be there for two weeks in our same town.

• 19:19Jessie Ware?

  And you're saying.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so like, yeah, I remember the, um, I remember the, was it the ninety two Olympics? We just watched it in a field and I could like see my house and we was like pretending we're on holiday.

• 19:28Jessie Ware?

  Oh, sweet.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Uh, whenever we go away, I get all my neighbours to record the soaps, uh, on the V H S tapes and then come back and watch them for hours.

• 19:37Jessie Ware?

  Omnibus.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, oh, my God, the omnibus. I'd watched that after watching it in the week.

• 19:40Jessie Ware?

  I love it. What were you eating on the, on the telly dinner?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  It was like, this is no shade on like my family, but it wasn't like a cookie house. It is now. Um, I think that's changed culturally in, in a lot of these places, but at the time, sometimes microwave dinners. But always, um, like my vegetables was often mushy peas in a tin. Um, but then Sunday dinners were massive, like Sunday roast. That was huge. I used to love that.

• 20:06Jessie Ware?

  Who came for that?

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Again, that'd just be family and I had a, I grew up with a stepdad who was the local window cleaner. Um, who, he, he started cleaning our windows and then started cleaning them on the inside. They had the cleanest windows in the village for some reason. I was like, this is interesting. And then he just stayed. Um, he was very sweet. Um, so my stepdad, my sister, my brother, my mum, yeah.

• 20:25Jessie Ware?

  What was your roast of choice? Did your mum change it up?

• 20:29Speaker 02

  We always change it up, but I remember actually when my, um, my grandma was alive, my mum's mum, she was the school dinner lady. Um, and she was so.

• 20:37Jessie Ware?

  At your school?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Uh, uh, no, um, I had a different school locally, but, um, there was just something about the, and again, I don't think my, my, my nan was like a massive. Cook, but on the things that she did, like those kinds of puddings or, um, those school dinners, she just had her, I can't remember what it was, but her particular way. That used to really stress my mum out. So I think it was equivalent of having Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen when my, my nan was there. And it's only like roast chicken or, yeah, roast beef.

• 21:02Jessie Ware?

  She had an opinion on that.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Put into your roast veg, but yeah, she had an opinion.

• 21:05Jessie Ware?

  Not like me at all.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  But my mum could always sort of feel like, what are you doing with the veg in that? Like she would just feel the pressure of the school dinner lady.

• 21:13Jessie Ware?

  Did it end up in a fight?

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Just passive aggression, really.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Which is very healthy.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Didn't let it out, okay.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Push it down, let it, let it stay there for twenty, thirty years.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Oh, fab.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  I think it's, it's what doing England's about, is pushing those feelings that I'm not talking about them and just hoping that'll be okay.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  How is it being a twin?

• 21:30Speaker 02

  I didn't notice, obviously, why would you, because you don't know any different, do you? I sometimes forget I'm a twin, like after I go, I've got a sister. Oh, and she was born on the same day as me, yes, I forget.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Do you look alike?

• 21:39Speaker 02

  No, she's, um, she's blonde, she's the only blonde in our family, um, uh, I was very, um, I don't think she'd mind me saying this, like, she, she, uh, when, when she came out, she was quite big. And then I flopped out after, I was absolutely tiny. Like, I think if I hadn't blinked, they'd have thrown me away. Um, then they put me in an incubator for weeks while she went home.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Had all the milk.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Started driving and pain going. Um, so she was, uh, we were just, I was very, very small and very wee growing up, um, and she was just, yeah, more confident.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  So we did quite thin growing up?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  I was tiny, yeah, and I think I had like, I did have a, an anxiety about food, I was very, very skinny, um, all the way through my teenage years, which I used to hate. Now I'm like, God, I wish I was skinny now.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Well, you don't make me tiny.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  It's like, you have to, the effort you have to put in just to say the same.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Did you, did your mum worry about you eating?

• 22:27Speaker 02

  No, but I think I was a bit indulged, um, again, no blame, but like, I, I, I was, I like those things. I don't really like to diverge, so I remember when I'd go to friends' house, um, I would get really anxious about what they would serve me. And, and there's a bit, we, there's a bit of a, like, on my dad's side of the family, there was that, uh, culture, he's like parents of, if you don't finish, you keep going and keep going. No, till you, you have it the next day and the next day and the next day.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I get, I totally get why, but I remember this awful day, I, I used to be, I used to be, um, anxious about milk for some reason.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  You didn't like it?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  I just, there was something like psychologically about it, um, and breakfast again, breakfast was just cereal growing up, cocoa pops and frosties and, uh, but it had to be semi-skimmed milk if it was too fat, I just had a reaction. Um, and my dad used to tolerate this. Uh, and then I remember one day I thought he poured in fat milk and didn't like it, but it was the right milk. And he changed it and he gave me my brother's, which was the wrong milk. And then I tasted the wrong milk and realised my mistake. And understandably, it was like, I'm sick of this. And I had to finish that bowl of cereal. It took me about four days. And I used to know in the morning I have to come back to it and look at it and go, um, I was just a very, yeah, I was like a very nervous kid.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Do you still speak to your dad?

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Yes, I love him. He's gorgeous.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I'd give him the wrong milk on his cereal.

• 23:55Jessie Ware?

  Was it just because they were like, you're not wasting food?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  I think, yeah, it came from a really good place. Like, I'm so glad that I was in the polite way would be like encouraged to like face my fears and try new things. And eventually I did. Now I love food now, but that only came because um, I needed to give my head a bit of a wobble and like address my fear around it. And that only happens by facing it.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  What's your favourite, what was your favourite meal when you were little?

• 24:21Speaker 02

  It would have been, I loved an English breakfast and loved the roast dinners, um, uh, like curries and things, but like meat, definitely meat. So vegetables, one of my first jobs, um, was on the till, it's my local supermarket. Um, and just because I hadn't really grown up with many fresh vegetables in my life. Uh, I remember the first day I'd see things coming down the conveyor belt and I hadn't a clue what they were. And obviously you have to get your sheet out and go, that's a butternut squash. I'd never seen a butternut squash in my life. Or every, definitely every courgette went through as a cucumber. Um, so I had to just, I had to just like sort myself out and go, there's all these opportunities.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I don't think my mum ever cooked broccoli or courgettes. I mean, it was kind of exotic.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that is, that is really changed.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Or we had carrots.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Right, yeah. But most, most of the best came out of the freezer. Uh, that's really changed now. This, this, I'm like, my mum's got all these cookery books and it's, it's really exciting. And a big long cook is one of my favourite things with my friends, um, taking five, six hours.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  So can you cook?

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean, my friends would say no, but I definitely can. Um, I just need to protect the time. Like, you have to protect the time, don't you? And I, I, that's what I struggle with. I'm, I'm a diagnosed, um, like workaholic and. I will easily choose working on that script over looking after myself. Um. And it takes, it's taken like friends and family to tease me out and go. And cook like this, spend, have a Sunday off and let's cook a lovely dinner.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  So I've heard you're a worker, Holly. And you say you're diagnosed. Does that mean you're getting, you, you've been in therapy to try and deal with it?

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I've, I, I, I used to feel so um anxious about talking about it because there's something about. Um. I guess there's a perception and I get where it comes from that a- as addictions go. It's a bit made up, like just, it's not um the chemical addiction of alcohol or drugs or um surely you control how much you work.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Must give you some endorphins.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  It's the same thing. I've, I've, I've, I've.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  It's like running or something.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's um. Any addiction, I guess, is, is filling some kind of hole in your life, isn't it? It's like a vacuum because you're not dealing with something or, or I know, I know, it's definitely chemical. Um. But the dopamine hits I get from, um. I guess when I realised it was a problem is because my behaviour and, and certainly.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  I, I noticed I was lying like to my friends about, in the, in the exact same way you go, oh, I, I haven't had a drink today or I've only had one glass. I would say, and I got up at a normal time and I hadn't, I got up at like three or I'd, or I'd worked through the night. And you go, why, why am I lying? That's interesting. I must, I must know.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  That it's.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  The pattern is unhealthy, but I'm, and, and you start to be a absolute chaotic mess in the same way you would if you were doing drugs or people would look at you going. And you're okay? That looks like you're wearing yesterday's clothes or you're not really, you're not really shit. Um. So it's the same, the, the, it manifests in the same way. You just have to get over the shame of people going, it's basically a humble bragging it. You're going, oh, I'm so successful. I'm working so much.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  We're, we're quite happy that you are because of the, of the prolific.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  But that's interesting, isn't it? I, I've realised it's the only.

• 27:34Jessie Ware?

  That's not helpful.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  But it's the only addiction, but no, it's great. I love it. But it's the only addiction where um everyone wants you, wants you to have it.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Wants you to carry on. Yeah, because it's so, yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  But so what is your day like for someone who works very hard?

• 27:49Speaker 02

  There's no normal day, which is brilliant.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  What time to get up?

• 27:55Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna lie, uh, no, um, it's got later, like I I I've realised that I love sleep. I really like sleep as I've gotten older. So I would try, I do like working early. There's something psychological about feeling like you're ahead. And there's still definitely something about not growing up in the arts world and parents having proper jobs. There's something about going, I need to tell myself it's a proper job. I can't like waft around the house. Do five hundred words in the afternoon, I've got to work, um.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  So you get up.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Six thirty, seven.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Oh, that's quite early.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and try to.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Do you have coffee first?

• 28:29Speaker 02

  I have coffee, yeah, make a little, um, French press of coffee. Um, I'm not a coffee snob at all, but I do, um. Yeah, a big old pot of coffee, which I'll get through.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Breakfast?

• 28:40Jessie Ware?

  Do you forget to eat?

• 28:41Speaker 02

  No, I don't forget, but, um, it's just, um, I don't wake up massively hungry, uh. But then when I'm like with friends, like if I stay with some friends and things, I'd love it. I have a big old.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  You like a full English, yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  English or like a lovely yogurt, granola, fruit, honey, that's great. It it I intellectually, the idea of, I've got like, I'm quite lucky. I've got like a nice garden here in London. Um, and intellectually, I understand that what would make me dead happy would be to protect thirty minutes in the morning. Where you go out with a lovely bowl of fruit or something.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  And sit outside.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  And sit out there and not do anything, just like be in your head.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Um, a- a- and every morning I find myself at my computer with my coffee, but like just doing that, um.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  So you you don't have your breakfast. Do you stop for elevenses or do you go out and exercise or?

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I look, go to the gym, I like running. Um, but the good thing about, the amazing thing about being a playwright or a screenwriter is you. People, people drag you out the house because you've got stuff to do. You've got to be in a rehearsal, you've got to be on set, or you've got to go to some auditions. Um, you're not like a novelist, you can't put yourself in a log cabin and do five hundred words a day. Um, so most of my life actually is in in meetings. I've got to really protect the work time, which is also possibly why I got up at six in the morning. But, um, I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful that most. Most of my days are surrounded by other people making the work rather than just being in my own head.

• 30:08Jessie Ware?

  And do you work always in the same place? You like to work in your study or at home?

• 30:13Speaker 02

  I move around quite a bit, actually. Upstairs, I've got a little office or in the garden or in my kitchen.

• 30:19Jessie Ware?

  Oh, so you take your laptop everywhere?

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Move it around. But most of the time, you get like twelve minutes between the things. So you're in a cafe or on a train. The number of lines I've written between Stockport and Crewe. It's not like, it's not romantic, but you've just got to do it.

• 30:34Jessie Ware?

  So what we have here is chicken with saffron and honey and orange dressing, chili, basil. Coriander's in there, mint and fennel. It's from Jerusalem, the cookbook.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 30:47Jessie Ware?

  That's Ottolenghi and Sammy Tamimi.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Lovely.

• 30:51Jessie Ware?

  And then this one is also an Ottolenghi, but it's from his Ottolenghi simple and it's a roasted cauliflower with grated raw cauliflower, pomegranates, pistachios, hazelnuts, and loads of other herbs.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  It doesn't look simple.

• 31:02Jessie Ware?

  It, it, I mean, it's Ottolenghi simple. That's why they called that the cookbook or Ottolenghi symbol. And then there's a bread if you want some.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  How gorgeous, thank you. I do like a bit of kick, like a chili.

• 31:11Jessie Ware?

  Okay, good.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Thank you. I can't be the first to serve.

• 31:14Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you're the guest, yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Thank you. Here we go.

• 31:17Jessie Ware?

  Oh, God, no pressure.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Tried to do that MasterChef bite where you go.

• 31:22Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my God.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Mmm, lovely.

• 31:24Jessie Ware?

  Okay, good, right.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Not enough, thank you so much. Mmm, God, the orange.

• 31:28Jessie Ware?

  It's dead, isn't it?

• 31:29Speaker 02

  She's zesty.

• 31:30Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  She's zesty, but not so spicy. I always amaze them how something can be so light and yet full.

• 31:37Jessie Ware?

  Mmm, that's that book, Jerusalem.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:40Jessie Ware?

  One of the best cookbooks.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  I think it's one of the greatest cookbooks of all time, yeah.

• 31:44Jessie Ware?

  Sammy Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi are incredible, so it's all them. It's not me at all.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  This is the thing that would have freaked me out as a kid. Just all the bits, like all the complicated bits in it. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now I love it, but I had to train myself.

• 32:00Jessie Ware?

  Well, then you kind of were in the land of lovies and you had to kind of go for dinners all the time.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  J. Shekies and the Ivy, you had to sort yourself out.

• 32:08Jessie Ware?

  Do you have like a tradition of somewhere that you go post a show opening?

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Um, even though I just joked, Jay Sheeky's. I've never been there.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, I didn't know it was a thing, um, but cause it's, cause of where it is in the West End. Yeah. It's kind of between a lot of theatres. Um, and I was very, it's gonna sound like a humble brag. I was very lucky, one year I had, um, two plays on the same street, uh, St. Martin's Lane, which they should have renamed. Which ones? James Graham's Passage or something, that's not weird. I love that. I'm gonna go down James's Passage. Go down James Graham's Passage. I wish. I love that. It was at the Noel Coward and, uh, maybe you saw Ink at the, um, Duke of York's or.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  No, I saw Ink at the Almeida.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  We'd moved down there, so I was sort of between those two theatres. What I really love, because I often eat alone, um, because I'm working. What I've discovered I love is if you can sit at a bar on a high stool, but face, face away from other people, but face the kitchen or face a barman, it's a lovely way to eat on your own. I discovered that in New York, I think, when I was working out there and just, because you're there for months and months and months on your own. New York's a great place to be on your own. Mm. And they just have a culture of, um, yeah, sitting at a bar, even in a pub, sit at a bar. And I love that. So, yeah, for some reason, um, Jay Sheeky's on my, on the last night of any run of a play in the West End. I go there and. Do you go on your own?

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Go on my own, like a moment on my own. Often I'll go there with friends or. Yeah. Loved ones or cast members, but that's a moment when I just sort of go on my own and try to, very unusual for me, take the moment of going. So that was nice. I had a play in the West End, that was good, well done. And I had a little whiskey and champagne or some oysters and. Um, and then you go see the last night of a play. That's a beautiful tradition. Yeah, very, very inconsistent for somebody who was worried about food.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Cornflakes, yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Exactly. Frosty's, no way. What a slimy thing that's alive down your throat. Yeah, that's great. Um, for some reason. I think it's the, um, the ritual of it, like the ceremony and the sharing of it, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're doing something together, which I love, yeah, it's great. It's what theatre is. They're just, they're just beautiful to me because it's one of the last things that you can only do in proximity with other people. It doesn't work without other people. Um, and I'd know, so I thought about that a lot during lockdown. Why theatre's amazing and actually why I think in any conversation about AI and the future.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Theatre's gonna be fine, like it survived two thousand years and it's gonna keep going because. And I think a younger generation is coming to the theatre because of that, because they, it's become more atomised and entertainment and culture is shared privately, that feeling, very similar to going to a football. And celebrating together is like a, just a human, human need. And there was like a study. I think it was University College London, they did a study of people's heart rates when they sit in a theatre. And something happens in like the 10th minute, when everyone's heart rates start to line up. And it only happens about, I think, so it's something specifically about watching a story. So it doesn't happen necessarily with classical music or. But if you watch and share a story together in the same space. That's amazing. I know, it sounds really cheesy and sentimental.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  It's romantic, but, but I think we have to hear those things and remember those things because we are becoming more unconnected and, and like it, it devastates me that a younger generation, the, the biggest problem is loneliness. And you think, how can we, with all these devices in our pocket that are designed to connect us? And like young men in particular are lonely, can't bear it, really can't bear it. But it's not real connection, is it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like social media, so you have the, the exhaustion of having to perform and narrate your own life rather than. Like this is the Gareth Southgate thing, and this is why, I know, and he wouldn't characterise it as this, and I think he wrongly has perceived his experiment, his project was wrongly perceived as being

• 36:01Speaker 02

  like woolly and woke and progressive, because it's about feelings and vulnerability, but actually it was all about strength, like men being stronger by sharing the things that they're all sharing and actually talking about it. He identified that before him, we had this golden generation of players that just couldn't sync up, couldn't be a team. And they've spoken about that, like Gerrard and Rooney, they were just like, we just didn't trust each other, we didn't like each other, we didn't know each other. And we didn't know what England was, like we had a very clear club identity. Yeah. Rituals and symbols and history and legacy and story. And then they turned up at England and they were just told to go and play. And Gareth just recognised immediately.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  That what you have to, if you're gonna trust each other, if you're gonna take risks, if you're gonna be creative, you have to know each other and like each other. And that's not weak. That's sort of like to go, I'm scared, are you scared? Is about the strongest thing anyone can do. And I find it so amazing. I try to celebrate that in this TV drama because I do think he's mischaracterized as being. He did it, people think he did it because it was just nice, it was the nice thing to do. It was a nice thing to do, but also it worked. They they became a better football team and we've had a series of better results. In a hundred and fifty years, it's like extraordinary, but you did that by. Like his story for a young man of resilience. Like what he went through when he missed this penalty in nineteen ninety six, which is where we start.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  And then twenty years later, he comes back and it's him. It's so like, as a writer, how how did I get lucky enough to find this story? He is the one who fixes the penalty curse. England had never won a World Cup penalty shootout. And he's the one who walked into the room and went, I think we have a problem. They didn't even practise penalties before him.

• 37:42Jessie Ware?

  I mean, that was mad about the timing.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:44Jessie Ware?

  That the Germans, who were the best penalty takers, took seven minutes seconds.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, three times as long. We were the fastest in the world. We didn't practise them. We didn't talk about them. And like, like classic, let's just pretend they don't exist. And it obviously didn't work. And he looked, he used his own trauma. To go, I think we have a problem. How are we gonna fix that? And I think that story of resilience, like as a young man. There's so many negative stories about young men at the moment, aren't there? And.

• 38:10Jessie Ware?

  The manosphere.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  The manosphere and if do we perpetuate a Christ of masculinity, but I keep saying there's a Christ of masculinity. But him going, how do you behave as a young man if something bad happens to you? Or if you fail, do you get angry, resentful, blame the world? Or do you use it to come back better next time? And I can't think of a better example of a guy who just went, let's just like come back better and do that together. I think it's so gorgeous as a story.

• 38:34Jessie Ware?

  When did it come to you to make the?

• 38:36Speaker 02

  I was in a pub. These are all the best ideas come from. I was in a pub garden watching, I was Russia, uh, two thousand and eighteen, the first World Cup. I think it was Columbia, Columbia, England.

• 38:47Jessie Ware?

  When it went to penalties.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  When it went to penalties and they, for the first time ever won. But even before that, I think I was watching in the second half. And I remember hearing people talking about it and me agreeing. They just felt different.

• 38:57Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  We we had, we had fallen out of love with our players and the age of like tabloids and wags and bad behaviour. And I think some of that was really unfair on those players. Um, but these, this is a younger generation, the youngest team we'd ever uh, put out in since that in the nineteen twenties. Uh and they just felt good, they felt like good men. And I thought that's, I just was really curious about how somebody, I remember at the age of the waistcoat and he was presenting a kind of English gentleman thing. Was it two thousand and sixteen? Two thousand and eight, he took, I mean, two thousand and sixteen and that was eighteen was his first World Cup. I remember like speaking to my mum on the phone and she's going, I just like them, I don't know why, they just feel like good men. And I thought, how do you go into any workplace and change like the culture of it, especially football, which is,

• 39:42Speaker 02

  you know, traditional and and old. Um I just found that really curious. So I basically, I remember calling them, calling the F A. And so you have to be really bolshy and just like call, call prime ministers and say, I wanna do a play about you. And they were really kind and they said, we get offers a lot, we get like documentary offers and things, which we always turn down. But there's something about a play, particularly for the National Theatre. They thought that's interesting, but they basically said, can you wait? Because it's a three act structure and Gareth had in his head this three act structure, beginning, middle and end.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  You were like, that's music to my ears, I can wait. I absolutely wait, we said we're only in act one. So Gareth, Gareth had the idea for the three acts. He basically, the, one of the main things that he identified, and I think this is applicable across our national life. He, in football, he identified that one of our problems was we just um chase the quick fix. A new manager arrives, get the players on and just like try and find this, uh uh and and the, and we as fans were as responsible for that problem, because we were going, we need to win, win now. Rather than going, what the Germans did, do you remember when the Germans lost to us five one? Yeah. I think in two thousand. Everyone had socks with five one on, yeah, from to Sainsbury's, yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  It was a great moment, not for the Germans, and so traumatized were the Ger- were the Germans by losing to us that badly. They, they engaged on a decade long project of renewal, they called it Das Reboot. And and in a very German way, when this cannot happen again, we can't lose to the English this badly. So they took a decade to root and branch. Yeah, and they started a really young, inexperienced, yes.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  They changed the training programme, they changed how they organised the sport.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  That was because they lost to England, that's kind of amazing. I know, uh, so they're welcome and and then ten years they come back and they win the World Cup again. And we never do that in any part of our national life, even in our politics right now. And we don't allow for it to happen. We don't go, this is going to take a decade. But imagine if we'd done that ten years ago, eh, energy policy, housing, anything would be okay now. And we just never have the courage to go this.

• 41:45Jessie Ware?

  People want quick fixes.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  And again, why? It's really, because things are really bad. So we want it to turn around very quickly. But what you need to do, what you need to do that successfully is have a really good storyteller. Gareth was a really good storyteller. He said, this is going to take time. We might not win the first one, but we hope to win the third one. So they had a clock. It's in the drama. They had a clock that was counting down to the third tournament. Just so the players went, calm down. We know we don't have to do this tomorrow.

• 42:12Jessie Ware?

  But so when he wrote the Dear England letter, were you just like, thank you. So Southgate, I mean, honestly.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  I, it's a work of art, like, put it in the loo.

• 42:22Jessie Ware?

  Beautiful piece of.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Gorgeous. And I just read it. It's um, and I'd already decided to do the play by then. I'd already spoken to a team. I'd spoken to the national. They'd said, can you wait? Um, and it was going quicker than they imagined. So I think their plan was to get to the semi final. In uh, the Euros that we hosted and they got to the final. And then the the plan was meant to get to a final in Qatar and win that. And obviously that didn't, spoilers, didn't happen.

• 42:46Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Doesn't matter. We were on our, on our way to winning. Um, so they were, they were ahead, but that letter. I don't, no disrespect to previous England managers, but when you read the language in it. And like just treating us as grownups and going like things like, why do we care so much? Why do we behave the way we behave? He talked about conduct, which I just love. And it's why I don't necessarily understand why some of his um detractors, particularly on. Let's say the small C conservative side of things that would prefer a different strategy.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Don't celebrate a patriotic Englishman going, it's not just about results, it's how you conduct yourself, it's how you behave as men on the pitch and as fans and as women and as families and everyone, it's how you behave. He wrote that and I just thought it was so beautiful. But what he also wrote, I think the sentence is, and it made me realise he's the state of the nation player, right, we needed. I think the sentence is, why it matters so much is every football match when England plays, it sees itself, we are all part of a collective that sees itself in the national consciousness. They had of an England football manager saying that, but the national consciousness, that what we're all doing in any part of our lives is contributing to a story and making new memories that

• 44:04Speaker 02

  we share for each other. And the fact that he described that as being, that's why I'm here, he wanted to make new memories for people. I just think it's so beautiful.

• 44:21Speaker 03

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• 44:56Jessie Ware?

  I'm interested with somebody who you work so hard and fast, but also with such amazing output.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  That's very lovely, thank you.

• 45:06Jessie Ware?

  Oh, good pleasure. Writing a musical.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:10Jessie Ware?

  How was that for you? You've got to wait for someone like Jake Shears to, no doubt Jake's one of the best writers, but and Elton John. You're kind of waiting for that bit of it. Was it quite frustrating or did you kind of understand patience?

• 45:24Speaker 02

  You learn a lot about yourself because yeah, you're not in control of everything and that's great as well because you're sharing the.

• 45:30Jessie Ware?

  Tammy Faye we're talking about, which I'm so annoyed I didn't see.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  I wish they'd moved it to the West End.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we did really well at the Almeida.

• 45:37Jessie Ware?

  It did incredible in the Almeida. It was like.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  And then did not do well at all on Broadway.

• 45:41Jessie Ware?

  Which, I know it was probably, but it's, and I'm really sorry about that.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Well, it's an American idea.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  I mean, thank you, but it's.

• 45:47Jessie Ware?

  Explain what Tammy Faye's about. Maybe that's why it didn't do well on Broadway.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Possibly. I've thought about it a lot. I don't think I've completely understood that moment, but like in a Gareth Southgate, Pippa Green's, where I try and go, well, what was that? Like failure is an important part of your life and what was I in control of? What can I learn from it? What was I not in control of? Was it always destined to fail? So Tammy Faye was a musical. I wrote the, you call it the book, but the script. Which is how you struck the story and the dialogue. Jake Shears, amazing friend of yours, like Scissor Sisters guy, he wrote the lyrics. And Elton John, which is amazing.

• 46:23Jessie Ware?

  And this is an incredible trio.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  It was really lovely to spend time with these people who I just admire and adore. He wrote the music and. So yeah, the rhythm of that is, I worked a lot with Jake directly on the story. So you go, here's how I'm going to shape. The story of this televangelist who, despite coming from that world of sort of right wing Christian America. Found a really beautifully tolerant, progressive version of her faith whereby she was the first person, I think, to have an AIDS patient on her evangelical show. And she really celebrated him and celebrated gays in the church and the church turned against her. And she was this incredible figure of defiance and celebration, like a beautiful woman.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  It was also very complicated. She bankrupted loads of people and she said she didn't know all the money she was taking in on excessive glamour. Houses and cars and really lovely, meaty, complicated stuff ripe for a musical. And it's also Elton's world, like that gospel stuff. So it just felt, felt great. So you, I would work on the story and how I would shape it. You would say, here's, I'd say to Jake, I think is the next scene. So what's the song? What is a song? What's my work? What's your work? He'd write lyrics, I'd go back and forth. It was great. I'm really collaborative. And then you get an email from Elton, who's then written the music. And you click it and it's the the feeling when you know you're like maybe the second author person hearing a new Elton John song in the world. I just absolutely loved it.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  So it was different and you have to really leave your ego at the door. Like basically, no one gives a shit about the book writer. People come to music cause for the for the songs. So what you're in the service of is is that and it's kind of really pure.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, they come for the story.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  They do, but I don't think they'd think of it in those terms and and rightly so. You're so you you just go, I'm here to serve this story and to serve this music. And it went really well in London.

• 48:10Jessie Ware?

  Like you're you're it went amazingly. It was sold out.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  It was sold out.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  There was some Olivia Awards.

• 48:15Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, it was amazing.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, we couldn't get a ticket.

• 48:18Jessie Ware?

  And I was supposed to go on the last night and I was sick or something.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  No, we were sick.

• 48:23Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you were sick.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  You were um um we had a Covid broke out in the company.

• 48:26Jessie Ware?

  That's what happened.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  We had to cancel it, yeah.

• 48:27Jessie Ware?

  And then you go to Broadway and it doesn't, it gets taken off quite early.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Really, it's what it was like I have to you have to own it. And the thing other thing we don't talk about.

• 48:34Jessie Ware?

  It was two months.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  It was about that. It was probably less than two months.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Less than two months.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  It was one of those that will go like in the history books where it goes, this this went, this was it was it was it was bad.

• 48:46Jessie Ware?

  Did you feel it happening when you were there? Were you like, what's going on?

• 48:49Speaker 02

  I knew something was wrong. You could feel um so there was not uh either the mood wasn't right or um. There there were challenges as well. Again, it's no one's fault, but we were in a really big theatre. Um possibly too big. We had to fill that. I also think there was understandable um. Questions about even though um Jake is American, is it is a British transfer of an American story. And I understand like American audiences, um it was a very difficult moment in America at that time is the joke. We opened during the election of the in twenty twenty four, the second election of Trump. Um very violent time in America, a very upsetting time. And I think our culture in this country um is more is.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  Especially when it's our stories, you go, this is when you go to the theatre, you go, we need to, we need to look at this and address it. And I guess there was a problem a bit of a British transfer telling an American story is a very difficult time for America. And I get that and I really respect that. And for some reason, you have to go, was it slightly the work? Was it my work? Was it the work? Uh, and was it the wrong time? Was it the wrong place? But for some reason, it just didn't take. Um, and you have to respect that. You have to just own that and, and try to learn from it. But it's definitely not the audience's fault. It's definitely not the theatre's fault.

• 50:05Jessie Ware?

  But would you bring it back to the West End?

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's.

• 50:07Jessie Ware?

  Or does it feel a bit raw still?

• 50:10Speaker 02

  It'd be really brave. Um, it'd be really brave to go, we're gonna, we're gonna try it again. And that has happened. Shows have failed and then come back and been brilliant. Like Les Misgott, the worst reviews. Um, it really died when it first ran in Stratford. One star, two stars, and it's been running for 20 years. So you can learn from it.

• 50:29Jessie Ware?

  And Merrily We Roll Along, I think, didn't really do what it did. Um, was it Sundance, isn't it? And then it's just had this huge moment on Broadway with Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe. And now they're making it into a movie and with Richard Linkley. So I would like you to bring it to the West End.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Well, you could take it back to the Almeida for a second run and then move it on slowly.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  The work that Jake and Alan did, I think is really beautiful. And that's what you, of all the many complicated feelings you have when you have, um, something doesn't work. And like, the thing I don't think we've ever come to talk about, like, is humiliation. I was embarrassed. I was like, really embarrassed. Yeah. You like want.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Do you know what I'd do? I'd say, oh, fuck off.

• 51:09Jessie Ware?

  No, it's easy for you to say, Mum. Your, your name isn't the one on the, in the lights.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  But I think I would have.

• 51:15Jessie Ware?

  And you feel responsible for a cast and you feel.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  A company about a neck, especially, it's really hard if you're in that world, is it? As an actor, people had their first Broadway job, they moved to New York. I felt the company really, really heartbreaking. Of course you go. What could I have done if I'd have fixed that, if I'd have done that, and I know there's not much I could have done. But you do, yeah, you feel you feel the public embarrassment of it, because of course you want people to think you're good at your job and what you do and.

• 51:41Jessie Ware?

  Can we fast forward into Punch has gone to Broadway and it's done very, very well.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Ink went to Broadway and that was lovely. And so, yeah, I don't I don't know where my place, but musicals are hard.

• 51:51Jessie Ware?

  Musical are famously hard.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  Expensive and hard and.

• 51:54Jessie Ware?

  Would you ever do another one?

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Without a doubt, I'd dive into it immediately and even with the potential for failure, and I think only it's not only four musicals have made the money back this century. They're really, really hard to get right.

• 52:06Jessie Ware?

  Which is your favourite musical?

• 52:08Speaker 02

  I love Les Mis, I think the music's beautiful, yeah. I mean, it's very, I know it's very romantic and it's very eighties.

• 52:14Jessie Ware?

  I'm going to see Into the Woods tonight.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  Into the Woods is a gorgeous thing, it's a really gorgeous thing. Um, I love, I've got it with like Blood Brothers growing up for me.

• 52:22Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  It's not true, living on the Never Never.

• 52:26Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my god, what a.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Love that, yeah, yeah, I just, I love I love them because they are unapologetically emotional, like they're just about big, big feels.

• 52:36Jessie Ware?

  I'm gonna start asking you about some food stuff, okay?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:39Jessie Ware?

  We've got, you've got to think about your last supper, your starter, main, pudding, drink of choice.

• 52:44Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 52:45Jessie Ware?

  You can think about this for a bit.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  Thank you. Well, I knew I knew it was coming, but.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I also, you cook, do you?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  Enough.

• 52:52Jessie Ware?

  When he remembers to eat.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  It's my future ambition to really protect time to cook.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  So do you have people around for dinner?

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Very, very rarely, but my future ambition, I've just done my kitchen up and it's ready, it's ready to be a host, a host venue. So and I'm really looking forward to it, like I just, I what.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  So what's your meal that you could you could cook?

• 53:11Speaker 02

  I have a I have a trauma I need to get over, which is, I remember when I first moved into this, my place. And I wanted to get the neighbours round, and for some reason I decided to cook this, I'd had it in Poland, this Polish soup.

• 53:25Jessie Ware?

  The sour soup, the rice sour soup.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  It's got like a sausage and an egg.

• 53:28Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, yeah, it's delicious.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  It's like a, um, yeah.

• 53:32Jessie Ware?

  That's really a bit left field.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  It's really left field, it's like probably a really hot day, but I just, I had it in my head, and it takes like four hours, something of like really slow.

• 53:41Jessie Ware?

  Why did you do that?

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Because I'm stupid and it ended like this, um, you have to straight.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  You have to strain it at the end, I think, because of all the onions and herbs. And I heard the door go and my neighbours were arriving.

• 53:57Speaker 02

  And I went, okay, great, I'll just strain it. And I put the colander in the sink and poured it into the colander.

• 54:03Jessie Ware?

  There's nothing underneath.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  And I remember it was going, and I saw it go down and I remember just putting it down, having a moment. And then answering the door. I said, hi, what come in? I'm so sorry, there's no food. I just poured it down the sink. And I could tell they knew I wasn't lying because of the state. Like clearly food had been made in my kitchen. And I just poured it down the sink.

• 54:23Jessie Ware?

  Oh mate, that's so Bridget Jones of you.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  And then answering the door and just, yeah. I think the sausage and egg were still in the sink, so.

• 54:31Jessie Ware?

  So what did you have for dinners?

• 54:33Speaker 02

  I think I ordered delivery, yeah. Yeah.

• 54:36Jessie Ware?

  I'm so sorry.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  It's okay.

• 54:37Jessie Ware?

  And you've never cooked again.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Never cooked again. So what, I'd like to overcome that trauma somehow, but.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  So one of my, my questions I'd like to ask, because I was thinking about people having music on in the background. What sort of soundtrack do you like to listen to?

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Again, it's really naff and sentimental. I love film scores, instrumental.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Do you?

• 54:56Speaker 02

  And like Max Richter or Philip Glass. And I think because they're connected to narrative and because you might know the narrative. I saw a ballet at the Opera House that Max Richter wrote about Virginia Woolf and.

• 55:08Jessie Ware?

  Oh wow.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Really beautiful, really beautiful. So anything that's just stirring and epic or, you know, Hans Zimmer and all that stuff, it's.

• 55:15Jessie Ware?

  It's quite, it's like quite, yeah.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  Can be intense.

• 55:18Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Because you have to think about soundtracks for your theatre and your plays.

• 55:23Speaker 02

  Sometimes, yeah. That's the, that's the gorgeous thing when you get to work with people who compose, over composer from Dear England. Paul Mac or I'm working with someone called Daniel Pemberton at the moment on my Ink film. When they've interpreted your story and they come back with this score. And I think for, I think for Dear England, I remember the moment they went to this huge church, a city, I think in Europe, in Hungary. And they have an orchestra and they, and they're playing it and you go and that, that's a really lovely moving thing. I mean, I know this is second nature to you, but when someone's interpreted your story. And translated that into a different language and like a score, and that's really beautiful. I love that.

• 55:58Jessie Ware?

  Last supper, come on.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  This is, I think it's probably a cop out, but the reason why I'm going to say it is, given my previous younger version of self that was quite frightened about food. One of my discoveries.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  A group of friends, we try to protect a weekend every year, we will go to some random European city and make sure it's not Paris or Rome. Went to Toulon and we went to Helsinki and Krakow. And one of the things we do.

• 56:24Jessie Ware?

  Savasup, was that because you did?

• 56:28Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 56:29Jessie Ware?

  Great weekend then.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Great, yeah. We discovered, I discovered that I love tasting menus.

• 56:35Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you do?

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Which is so strange. So the extended nine course meal, particularly when you get the pairing wines. And I think because of the story, the theatre, where you're going on a journey and there's normally some kind of narrative. Went to this place, is it Relay in Copenhagen? And it's, you know, it's got a story and it's from the, from the local region and it's all local ingredients and it's about, so I think going on a journey like that. So partly because I think it would delay my death by having a nine course tasting menu, the last three hours. But something about the rhythm of that nine dishes, paired wine, it could be anything. I don't mind if it's foraged Norwegian-y stuff, or if it's sumptuous Polish food.

• 57:21Jessie Ware?

  You want the story.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  The theatre of the story and just taking your time. And every course, you have a 10 minute break and you chat to your mates and you take a photo.

• 57:28Jessie Ware?

  But so you're not, you're not actually fussed about what you're eating? You like the story behind it?

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:33Jessie Ware?

  You're doing the right job then, aren't you, James?

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Absolutely. You would hope. Yeah. And also, again, like theatre, it's what you share, like the collective.

• 57:41Jessie Ware?

  Okay, so tasting menu, we're not going specific on the food.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  I don't think so. Well.

• 57:45Jessie Ware?

  Drink? What drink are we doing?

• 57:47Speaker 02

  So paired wine. So start.

• 57:49Jessie Ware?

  Oh, wow. Yeah, okay.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  So but I'll hand that to the gods slash sommelier. So it's up to them. But I guess you start on a little blush maybe, or some champagne, some beers, move through the white into the red.

• 57:59Jessie Ware?

  Are you finishing on a whiskey?

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:01Jessie Ware?

  Which whiskey are you finishing on?

• 58:03Speaker 02

  I love whiskey too. Which, like Scotch and more.

• 58:06Jessie Ware?

  I like it quite peaty.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. And smoky.

• 58:08Jessie Ware?

  Oh, let's go do a whiskey tasting together. It's my favourite thing. I never, I never remember. Yeah, I'd love to do that.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  Love it. I love it. I love it. I love whiskey so much because I'm just saying the same things over and over again. But because of the story of whiskey, no disrespect to Bog. Or even wine, like, fine, but what, what, six months? Whereas whisky, right, I think to be called a single malt, it has to be a minimum of twelve years. But when you get like a, a, a single malt that's twenty one years, twenty eight years, the idea that, that three decades ago, some people put this in a cask and wheeled it into a warehouse on a mountain and it just sat there quietly. And then you get to taste it. And with a single malt, like on like a blend, which is often like hundreds of whiskies poured together to make a, a blend. A single malt is just the product of that distillery at that time in that place.

• 58:54Jessie Ware?

  You are such a romantic, James.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  I feel like I, I deflect, cause I'm, I, cause I have had like loads of issues with like intimacy and things like that. And, and as I've said, relationships. Whereas I think my ability to then deflect romance onto something else, like a whiskey or a moment in our political history. I love all that. But I'm sure it's because I do less in my personal life and then.

• 59:15Jessie Ware?

  Well, I, I, I would love to drink whiskey with you.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  That would be great.

• 59:20Jessie Ware?

  And maybe just get quite drunk as well.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, we're not spitting it out. No, no, no, no.

• 59:24Jessie Ware?

  We're having snacks with that.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Well, the purist would say, no, you can't, you can't take the whiskey. Do you have ice?

• 59:31Jessie Ware?

  I.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  No, no, no, there's no shame. I don't know why I did that.

• 59:33Jessie Ware?

  I like, I like a little of water.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  Well.

• 59:37Jessie Ware?

  Oh, oh, God, James, is this good or bad?

• 59:39Speaker 02

  What's amazing about that is.

• 59:40Jessie Ware?

  My day.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  No, no, you're, you're, you're bang on. So the misconception about water in whiskies, it dilutes it. It doesn't. This is really romantic. It makes it know itself more.

• 59:50Jessie Ware?

  Oh, stop. I love it.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Just by with a little encouragement, it opens itself up and is the best version of itself.

• 59:57Jessie Ware?

  Just like our James Graham with a tasty.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  What Gareth Southgate did to the England football team.

• 1:00:03Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my God, that was profound and poetic and beautiful. And I feel like we could finish on that, but we've still got some more questions.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  I do need to sort this.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  So I've made something called a Lisbon chocolate cake and I don't know why it's called that.

• 1:00:15Jessie Ware?

  Are you sure it's not from Lisboa, Nuno Mendes's cookbook?

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  So it's a, it sounded like a Jewish man that had made it first, but he'd been to Lisbon.

• 1:00:24Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  So it's basically a cake with chocolate mousse on the top.

• 1:00:28Jessie Ware?

  Have you gone to Lisbon for one of your friends?

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  No, it's on the list. I've never, I've never done Portugal at all.

• 1:00:32Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  James, would you like some?

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Tell me how much.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, slither.

• 1:00:38Jessie Ware?

  Slither less.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Pussy.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  What did I talk about? My food trauma?

• 1:00:44Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, wow, Mum.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Food shame. It's big, but I'm very excited.

• 1:00:49Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you don't have to eat it all.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Oh, shut up.

• 1:00:52Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  Yes, Mum.

• 1:00:53Jessie Ware?

  Do you want some, Mom, I want half of that because I'm going out for dinner in about two hours. Thank you. That looks amazing, Mum. Look at that, half and half.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  Really beautiful.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  Mum! Let's see, who knows?

• 1:01:07Jessie Ware?

  She's good, she's good.

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  There we go, thank you.

• 1:01:12Jessie Ware?

  All right, come on, James, do the taste test.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:01:15Jessie Ware?

  No pressure.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Do the MasterChef bite.

• 1:01:17Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  I've never made it before.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  What do you think?

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  There's a lot going on. It's melting. Oh.

• 1:01:27Jessie Ware?

  Moist?

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  It's moist, deep. It's confident, it knows itself, it's not shy.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Shush.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Oh, God, beautiful.

• 1:01:37Jessie Ware?

  That is good, Mum.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 1:01:39Jessie Ware?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  Mmm. I love the, um.

• 1:01:43Jessie Ware?

  It knows itself.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  The powder on the top gives that lovely.

• 1:01:47Jessie Ware?

  Oh, Mum. I think that's a winner, but was it a farf?

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:51Jessie Ware?

  Okay, just so you know, enjoy every mouthful, James.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  It was a farf, but not a terrible farf.

• 1:01:56Jessie Ware?

  Before we let you go.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  Yes, thank you for my pudding.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  It's a pleasure.

• 1:02:00Jessie Ware?

  What is a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere? Happy or sad?

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  Definitely not a Polish soup. Um.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  I would, well, can it be liquid? Does that have to be food like?

• 1:02:14Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  Like whisky?

• 1:02:16Jessie Ware?

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Whisky just puts me in a.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Which one?

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  I would say like an Islay whisky, like a Peaty One, so you've got things like, like a Volin de Froy. Um, it makes me think of my family, it makes me think of my dad, he was a big whisky drinker, and still is. Um, and I enjoy those moments of having it with him as a

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  of-age young man and talking about the world. Um, mostly think of Scotland and I'm, like, my first ever play was at the Edinburgh Festival and. And I still to this day, my tradition is at the beginning of every first play, first preview, the first night, I'll sit in the back with whiskey. And so it's not really a treat because I have, I have it like every day, but it does do a memory thing.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Do you always have one before you go to bed?

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  No, um, no, I just do cat.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  No, but I do, I always have one on the very first preview of a, of a play.

• 1:03:08Jessie Ware?

  Thanks for being on the podcast. You've been amazing.

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  I really love speaking. Thank you. Thank you for coming to see my plays. I don't take that for granted.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  No, I see everything.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  I love James Graham so much. I mean, he's the most modest person I think I've ever met. The humility of the man. He's so talented. Yeah. And like the romance of like,

• 1:03:42Jessie Ware?

  We've never had somebody give tasting menu. He was the most unlikely person to give a tasting menu as well.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  But also he was romantic about the whole setting and how he would eat it and the rhythm of it and everything.

• 1:03:54Jessie Ware?

  Mum, I gave him my number. I said, I said, we're going whiskey tasting.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:03:58Jessie Ware?

  I thrust it in his hand.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  I could see that.

• 1:04:01Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. James Graham, what a star, modest star and brilliant man and just writing incredible pieces of theatre and stories for us to all devour. Dear England is on BBC and you're gonna love it. It's

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  It tells the story.

• 1:04:19Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, of the England football team and Gareth Southgate being such an absolute genius.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  And a gent.

• 1:04:27Jessie Ware?

  And a gent. Dear England starts on BBC on the 24th of May and you all have to watch it. Even if you saw the play, which loads of you did.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  And I defy you to not have sweet Caroline in your head forevermore.

• 1:04:40Jessie Ware?

  Thank you, James, for coming on. I thought the recipes were really good today.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Jessie Ware?

  Such an easy salad to do, even for Ottolenghi standards. Your tam ottolenghi and Sammy Tamimi's Jerusalem cookbook, still brilliant. And it's this grilled chicken salad that we Never done before. And then the cauliflower one was lovely too.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Fabulous.

• 1:04:57Jessie Ware?

  I do feel like I've got herbs everywhere in every nook.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  I was trying to move them around with my tongue.

• 1:05:02Jessie Ware?

  Me too.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it wasn't very successful. I really needed a toothpick.

• 1:05:06Jessie Ware?

  Your um.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  You like my Lisbon. It wasn't chocolate mousse, it was Lisbon chocolate cake.

• 1:05:12Jessie Ware?

  Okay, it was a chocolate mousse cake.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Okay, fine.

• 1:05:14Jessie Ware?

  Thank you, James, for the wine. My cheeks are flushed and we'll see you next week.